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Wednesday, July 4, 2018

'Pedestrians are 2-3 x more likely to suffer a fatality when struck by an SUV or pickup truck than when struck by a passenger car'

Interesting read...most buy SUVs for the look, space and the safety (their own). 'SUVs, with their higher front-end profile, are at least twice as likely as cars to kill the walkers, joggers and children they hit'. This is a new angle to consider - how these vehicles effect the safety of others particularly those on foot.

Almost 6,000 pedestrians died on or along U.S. roads in 2016 alone — nearly as many Americans as have died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. Data analyses by the Free Press/USA TODAY and others show that SUVs are the constant in the increase and account for a steadily growing proportion of deaths.

Their investigation found:

Federal safety regulators have known for years that SUVs, with their higher front-end profile, are at least twice as likely as cars to kill the walkers, joggers and children they hit, yet have done little to reduce deaths or publicize the danger.

A federal proposal to factor pedestrians into vehicle safety ratings has stalled, with opposition from some automakers.

The rising tide of pedestrian deaths is primarily an urban plague that kills minorities at a disproportionate rate.

It is most prominent in cities both in the industrial heartland and warm-weather spots on the nation’s coasts and Sun Belt. Detroit; Newark, New Jersey; St. Louis; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Miami, San Bernardino, California, Birmingham, Alabama; Tampa; Fayetteville, North Carolina; and Phoenix had the 10 highest per-capita death rates among cities with populations of at least 200,000 in 2009-16.

Look at the grill height. You can see, that if struck, how much more damaging an SUV would be to your vital organs.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety calculated an 81 percent increase in single-vehicle pedestrian fatalities involving SUVs in 2009-16. The Free Press/USA TODAY analysis of the same federal data, counting vehicles that struck and killed pedestrians rather than the number of people killed, showed a 69 percent increase in SUV involvement.

'Pedestrians are 2-3 x more likely to suffer a fatality when struck by an SUV or pickup truck than when struck by a passenger car'